ilomilo
by Alwaysgurl2013
Summary: What if Emily and Aaron were dating when she had received the opportunity to go to London to work for Interpol? Based off of the song ilomilo by Billie Eilish


"Have you lost your damn mind Emily?" Aaron's voice is even tempoed and monotoned. But after dating him for nearly three years, she knew that his tone was not always indicative of his feelings.

"Of course not." Emily stood in his office, her arms crossed. "I don't understand why you're angry Aaron. This position is the best decision for my career. I'll be running my own office. I'll have a chance to be able to do more, to be more than I can do here."

"You don't understand why I'm angry? I have every right to be angry Emily. You taking this position means you're moving to another country and I'll never see you. It might be the best decision for your career but it means our relationship is over. There is basically no way for us to continue if you take it. Is that where we're at? We're done if you take this position."

"When you phrase it like that, yeah. I thought we could work past being in different countries because if it had been you being asked to go I would have supported you, but now that I know how you feel, I guess we're done." Emily really had expected this to go a different way. Aaron and her had pushed through so much in their time dating, was it really a job promotion that was going to be the end of them?

"Emily you've basically already made this decision without even letting me know there was a possibility of this job and you moving to another country. That pretty much sounds like you had decided our relationship was over before you even told me about this. Don't you dare put this all on me. It has nothing to do with whether or not I support you." Aaron's anger starts to weave into his words and as much as it hurts her to do so she has to admit he's right in some aspects of what he's saying. But at the same time, he's not even willing to see that there's a chance for them to continue being a them while she takes this job, so she can't help but feel like she's watching their relationship crash and burn. "So if this job is really the end all be all and you think it's really going to make your position then take it Emily. But it's clear from this conversation that this relationship or whatever this _was_ is over!" Aaron storms out of the room and Emily can only watch as her heart leaves with him. In two weeks she is leaving for London and can only wonder if taking this job is truly the right decision or not.

The months apart are hell on both of them, but neither will own up to the hurt they're both feeling and call the other. It's not until Emily is in DC helping the CIA out on a case that she even thinks of seeing him since he won't be coming across the pond any time soon. However it takes a lot of liquid courage before she will even think about approaching him.

"Emily? What are you doing here?" Her head pulls up slowly and he finds blank looking eyes staring back at him.

"Hotch…?" Emily's voice sounds as shocked as Aaron feels. Emily Prentiss was the last person Aaron ever expected to find on his front steps, drunk as a skunk. But Emily had been acting different since they had broken up that honestly Aaron couldn't explain why this version of her scared him. Even if she wasn't supposed to be in a different country he would be worried about the girl on his front porch. He had seen Emily intoxicated before, even to the point of having to call her a cab because he knew she shouldn't drive with how drunk she was. But tonight everything about the brunette in front of him is different. Her eyes have lost the sparkle he had grown to love and her face rolls downward again.

"Emily, are you ok?" She shakes her head ever so slightly. "You want to talk about it?"

"No." Her short response isn't what he expects to hear. Usually a drunk Emily means sharing her feelings and giggling as she tries to convince her friends to down more shots with her.

"Do you want to come inside?" Asking an ex to come in was one thing, but this is Emily. No matter how their breakup affects them in the day to day, he will never stop caring for her. So if she's drunk and needs a friend, he'll be there for her. Instead of answering him, Emily just shrugs and sits down on his step.

"So tired." Emily whispers just loud enough that it hits his ears.

"Come inside Em." Her nickname rolls off his tongue before he can stop it. "At least come sit on the couch." He could pick her up, they had proven it many times before, but he doesn't want to step into her personal space without her permission. So he offers her a hand to help her up, but she surprises him again by hitting it away.

"No."

"Ok Emily I won't touch you, but please at least come inside where it's warm." The frigid air cuts through his flannel pajamas bottoms and he knows that her winter coat can't be keeping her that warm either. Emily rubs a hand across her face before shaking her head again.

"Don't want to move. Everything feels heavy." Her feet slide off the step and land on the concrete in front of her.

"That's probably all the alcohol coursing through you. Any reason you decided to get completely wasted tonight?"

"Vodka was easier to swallow than the fact that you aren't coming back." For the first time in a while, Emily's voice cuts through him like a knife. They had broken up for many reasons- her new job, the move, the fact that there had been secrets kept, but he didn't think it was hitting her hard enough to make her drink like this. "I think a part of me always knew we'd never end up together. But we used to be so happy. So why? Why couldn't we have been still happy?" Aaron forces himself to sit down next to Emily on the cold wood step as she hiccups.

"Emily, there was so much that went into why we broke up."

"Bullshit. We were doing perfectly fine."

"We weren't though. The secrets we kept from each other was just the start, remember?" Emily doesn't answer his question, but keeps with an inner monologue that only she would be able to keep track off while this drunk.

"What hurts is that we never really said goodbye. We just kind of ended." Emily shrugs before wiping at her pink tipped nose. "I don't get it. Why? Am I that easy to forget and abandon? Did I really mean that little?"

"I don't understand Emily. You're completely unforgettable. I'll never be able to take you from my thoughts. But it's better this way, us being apart. We both agreed on that."

"Bull. Shit. You decided, I had no choice but to go along with it." Emily's head lulls backwards and Aaron almost reaches out to hold it in place since it reminds him too much of when Jack was a baby and couldn't hold his head up. But no sooner as the thought goes through his head, her's finds the banister to lean against. "You know what really gets me?" Her monotone voice scares him ever so slightly, but he can't keep himself from whispering.

"What?"

"We shared so many firsts, I wasn't prepared for our last. Last kiss, last argument, last time sleeping in each other's arms- I don't remember much but that now. I can't remember the good." Emily's hand reaches to rub her arms, making Aaron concerned about the winter air out here.

"Emily, come inside. It's cold out here." Her head flings from one shoulder to the other.

"Don't want to wake Jack." Even in her drunken state, her concern for his son is touching. There's a pause as Aaron doesn't know what to say to the woman he will never be able to strip from his thoughts. "You know what the saddest part is? Realizing we could have made it work. If you were truly in love with me like you said you were, you would have fought for me. But you didn't, and that just means I love you more than you loved me."

"Emily, it had nothing to do with love or not. Our secrets destroyed each other in the end."

"You destroyed me in the end." Emily hisses at him and he finds himself staring at the dull eyes that are strangers on her face again. "I fucking lost it as soon as I lost you." She brings her hands up limply to motion towards her shoulder before letting them fall back down. "Please tell me I meant something."

"Of course you did Em. Our relationship meant a lot to me. I'll never regret our time together." Aaron wants to pull Emily into his arms like he would have done if they were still together, but can't make himself move. Part of him wants to just throw all his reasons to the wind and just have his girlfriend back. He has to remind himself it was healthier for them to not be together. She lives across the sea now. Who knows how long she's even here for. She deserved to find someone who could love her the way she deserved to be loved.

"I shouldn't have come here." Emily pushes herself up from the steps, but soon finds herself back on it as she stumbles backwards.

"Emily, it's late, you're still drunk. Don't leave."

"I need to."

"Why?"

"I need to leave before I get my hopes up." Emily's voice whispers.

"About what?" Aaron can't stop himself from asking.

"About you actually loving me back." Emily pauses and Aaron can't bring himself to say anything because he's too scared to speak. He doesn't want to push her farther away. "Every time my phone buzzes I hope it's you missing me like I miss you. Every time I hear my name called out I'm just waiting for someone to say it in the right tone of voice because no one says my name like you do. And yet I think I'll always be hoping that you will one day wake up and realize your heart is breaking like mine is." A few silent tears slide down Emily's cheek towards her down turned lips. "I wasn't going to take the job, or well I hadn't made a decision one way or the other, but I was leaning towards not taking it originally. I was waiting for the right moment to bring it up and talk to you about it. To see what you thought about it all. But then we were in the heat of an argument and you were telling me to go and that we were over. And suddenly my decision was made for me." The truth of her statement hits him like a ton of bricks right in his guts. Had he pushed her away from the start?

"Why did you go?"

"I had no reason to stay." And in that moment he felt as broken as she sounds. Had they really ruined things for each other and broken each others' hearts at the same time?

"That's one of my biggest regrets. Pushing you away like that. So many nights I dream you're still here and that I never told you we were done and pushed you away to another country. And I wake up alone and missing you all over again and my heart breaks again." Emily's eyes meet his for the first time since their conversation started and he sees something different in them; he sees hope in her eyes. "I'm sorry for what I said in that moment Emily. I think we were both upset and hurting, but I never meant to hurt you like that. I never meant to cause you this level of pain." He wants to pull her close, wants to hold her and convey everything that he wishes he had told her that night instead of everything he did say, but his hands stay in his lap, fidgeting ever so slightly.

"I wish I had stayed." Her words catch him off guard. He never imagined he'd hear that coming from her lips. "Home is wherever you are." Her head falls to his shoulder and he takes this as permission to touch her as he wraps an arm around her waist.

"Then come home Em."

"I don't know if it's that easy."

"Then go back to England and finish out the job, but know that on my end, I love you. I'll keep supporting you through it." Emily looks up at him through drunken eyes, recognizing the significance of his words but not fully being able to respond.

"I'm cold."

"Let's go inside then." He helps her stand up and directs her towards the house. He might have to remind her of this conversation in the morning, but he will say it to her over and over until she believes it if that's what it takes to keep Emily in his life from here on out. He's seen what he's like without her and he never wants to live through that again.

**Author's Note: I got the title for this from Billie Ellish's song ilomilo. I did some research into both the title of the song and the meaning of the song in general. This definition was the one that really clicked with me that it was the anthem of this tale- "****ilomilo used to be ****billie eilish's** **favorite computer game ever. there are these 2 little creatures, one is named ****ilo** **(pronounced ee-low) and one is named milo (pronounced mee-low). ilo and milo start apart from each other in this ****anti-gravity** **world with all these little blocks floating around, and the point of the game is to get them to each other. when they get to each other, they hug. The idea of the game is losing the person you love, and finding them again. That is what billie eilish's song, ilomilo, is about. it's also about the fear of separation."**


End file.
